Ginger Pear Spice Muffins - perfect to bring to a friend.

This post is submitted to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and Tasty Tuesday.

Cooking for people brings me enjoyment. I like seeing them enjoy something I’ve made, and I feel good about making something nourishing for the people I care about. So when a friend had a small get together at her house, I thought about what I would bring. The food needed to taste good, but be healthy. In fact, I wanted my friends to be surprised at just how healthy it was. I wanted to bring something sweet, since I knew someone else was bringing something savory. I also wanted it to be vaguely breakfast or brunch appropriate. I turned to the food blogs, but did not see the inspiration I needed. So I turned to Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and saw just what I wanted (with a few modifications, of course!).

I ended up going with a variation of the Basic Muffins recipe found on page 482. Everyone loved them. They thought that the spices were just right, they were delighted with the level of sweetness, and they couldn’t believe the real pieces of pear inside. They taste delicious, and you would be hard pressed to find a healthier muffin. The recipe uses whole wheat flour, demonstrates soaking of the flour overnight to reduce the phytates, uses maple syrup (and a small amount at that) instead of a refined sugar, and includes fresh whole fruit. You must give these a try. Read the rest of this entry »

Making Soured Cream of Mushroom Soup

In my effort to use up my soured milk, today I played around in the kitchen and came up with this nourishing and filling soup. I call it soured cream of mushroom soup because instead of using fresh milk or cream, you use soured milk. If you have raw milk at home, you may naturally get soured milk after a week or so. If you don’t have any raw milk, you can use store bought sour cream, yogurt, buttermilk, or just sour some regular milk with a bit of white vinegar or lemon juice. This soup is very filling, and the base of beef stock makes it very nutritious as well! Read the rest of this entry »

I'm a food renegade

It is a wonderfully satisfying trip to get food when you arrive and are greeted by the farmer who not only owns the farm that produces the butter and cheese and vegetables and meat and so forth, but he also works in the field and with his animals daily. You can ask him, “how are the animals doing?” and he will tell you. You can ask him how the grass is coming in. He helps you put your newly purchased food in the bags and thanks you for the purchase.

This is why these days about 90% of my meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables, and fruit comes from CSAs, co-ops, and farmer’s markets. I want to know how the animals are treated before the eggs or milk is collected, before the animals are slaughtered. I want to know what vegetables are fresh and in season. I want to know how they were grown. Meeting the farmer gives me that chance to find out. It also makes me feel safer – I can avoid the massive industrial foodchain that can easily become contaminated (peanuts, anyone? Or the latest warning, sprouts? Before that was tomatoes, peppers, and spinach, not to mention the regular e. coli and salmonella scares…). He is running a smaller farm, so it is easier for him to keep a good handle on quality control. Also, since he is producing less food, if there is an issue, it is likely to be small and since his number of customers is small, it is easily contained. On the rare chance I could get sick from something I ate, it will be easy for me to track down the source of it. I have absolutely no fear for the safety of the food I purchase from farmers. I cannot say the same about the industrial food I purchase.

It is about as real as it gets – having that direct personal connection to the farmer. The only way you could be closer to your food source is if you grew it yourself. Unfortunately, that isn’t an option for me at the moment, living in an apartment in NYC. So I’ll take shaking hands with the farmer instead.

Yes, I am a food renegade, and this post is part of Fight Back Fridays.  This post is also part of Food Roots because I like to know exactly where my food comes from.